More Sexiness:

Some really great news from Violet Blue, who just became a sex columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. She’s really happy, it’s a huge opportunity for her and great news for those of us who value her perspective and think the world will be a better place for having it appear in a respected major metropolitan newspaper.

Congratulations, Violet!

Some details about her hiring and the deal she made:

It’s official. I’m now the sex columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Not just ‘plucked’ from the blogosphere to freelance for a 141-year-old mainstream media institution; Phil Bronstein hand-selected me to be their frontline sex writer, with a column and everything that comes with it. I just got home from the Chronicle building — today was the final meeting with the PR department, and to set the launch date (I wore my Laughing Squid shirt to the meeting). At one point David Wiegand said, “We’re just making sure it’s okay before we plaster your face on buses.”

…

I negotiated a really good deal for myself. My voice, my content, my sex-positive, all-gender, all-orientation stance is firm; they have agreed to run every edit and piece of publicity by me for approval; and after first publication rights, I own the columns, I keep the content. They’re taking a huge risk, and a huge gamble, and they’re letting me be me.

Awesome.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 29th, 2006 at 8:02 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response.

I have to confess…I live near San Francisco, and was a Chronicle subscriber. I’m very sex positive and all, but…my wife and I have two boys, 6 and 4. The eldest can read. The very racy adult content in the Chronicle (even prior to Ms. Blue), which is in the entertainment section – the same section as the comics – was a major factor for us in cancelling in our subscription.

Bully for Violet Blue, and all, and I really enjoy her stuff, online, as a grownup, but – am I being totalitarian when I ask, “Is the same section of the morning paper as the comics the right place for this?” Our eldest son is very precocious, and very interested in reading the paper (as he sees us do it every morning). I don’t think it’s ridiculous to think that the section that kids love most shouldn’t be the same section as the one with the sex columnist. What made me a newspaper reader as an adult was reading the comics as a kid. I want my sons to have that experience. Frankly, I don’t think Violet Blue should be a part of that, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable for me to think that.

Tnoswad, your perspective, and your comment, is welcome, but I fear you’ve come to the wrong place if you’re looking for any agreement with your fundamental premise that children should not be exposed to intelligent writing about sex. My own view is that children don’t tend to read anything that’s not of interest to them, and if they find something disturbing or unpleasant, they stop.

Given that we live in a culture that’s absolutely soaked with sexual imagery and info, it’s really not a question of whether your six year old is going to be exposed to same. The only real question is which particular sexual info and images are they going to stumble over first? For most kids, that’s porn, often quite bad porn. If I were raising a smart, reading six year old boy, I’d *much* rather his first exposure to sex stuff was Violet Blue’s smart prose, sitting next to the comics as if it’s nothing special or taboo, than some furtively-shared-on-the-playground glossy spread of a 19-year-old girl crying while getting double-penetrated by Ron Jeremy and his eighty-year-old-uncle.

Make it smart, put it in the morning newspaper, he’s gonna read six paragraphs, decide it’s boring, and move on. I can’t imagine him taking harm from this process.

But of course, he’s your boy. I’m not trying to make your decisions for you, just explaining why I don’t share your concern. No, you’re not being totalitarian — but I do think you’re being short-sighted.

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